drama on near

Near FM presents new audio drama ‘Heartburn’, written by Caitlin Magnall-Kearns; directed by Anna Nugent.

Heartburn is a modern take on the rom-com that looks at fatness and friendship. Set over one night in Belfast it follows Chris, a writer, and Lou, a “dinner-lady man” by day and pint puller at night. The two met at university and quickly became friends with benefits. Chris moved back to Belfast, and now, two years later, Lou turns up on her doorstep on New Years Eve with a bottle of prosecco and some questions that need to be answered. Over the night the two reminisce, drink, laugh, eat and try to reckon with their relationship. Can they be mates, should they get together, or should they just call it a day?

Blathnaid McCahilly as Chris

Colm McCready as Lou

Please be advised that the programme contains strong language and sexual content.

Want your Shakespeare battered or filleted? Listen to A Fishy Tail of Sound and Fury, a new radio drama written and produced by Berni Dwan, and directed by Brendan Laird.

What’s on the menu? Food snobbery and copy culture served up with lashings of lovely Shakespeare, infused with socialist ideology, and a palette cleanser, no less, of poetic justice.

A Fishy Tail of Sound and Fury

Written & produced by: Berni Dwan

Directed by: Brendan Laird

Cast:

Alan O’Brien: Tom / Fishmonger

Tara Power: Customer / Ursula

Jimmy O’Connell: Roving Reporter

Niamh Large: Mrs. Boylan / Matt Damon / Damo Chirpy Chipper / Ray / John Dory / Audio Assistant

Special Sound effects:

Declan McGlade. Assisted by Oisín White

Singers:

Alannah White / Ysobel Castanada

New audio drama High Spirits by Méabh de Brún – 6pm June 8th 2023

Three siblings and one in-law gather after a patriarch’s burial to honour a very unusual letter of wishes. Their late father wants to be contacted in the afterlife, and so begins a dark comedy full of suspect séances, family secrets and the undeniable bond of siblinghood.

Directed by Anna Nugent

Caoimhe Mulcahy as Rachael

Méabh de Brún as Mags

Patrick de Monfort as Mike

Paul Nugent as Richard

Creative Consultancy by Clare Monnelly

Made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television License Fee.

New audio drama broadcasting at 6pm on Thursday the 1st June 2023.

The Whale and the Swan by Fiona Browne

Marie is pregnant at a young age and finds herself in the care of the nuns. Her daily reality is stark and brutal. In order to survive she creates her own world among the hanging sheets of the laundry, and regularly escapes into ‘Suchatime’

Directed by Anna Nugent

Cast:

Noreen – Fiona Browne

Sister Augusta/Mother Superior/ Aunt Joan – Noni Stapleton

Made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television License Fee.

A young woman decides to end her life on high point by jumping off a building before her happiness can turn sour. However just as she is about to jump, she is stopped by a man calling himself the Angel of Death, and it seems he rather she stay alive.

Directed by Anna Nugent

Eva – Rachel Walshe

Jamie – Paul Nugent

Joy – Jessie Doyle

Mona – Jade Jordan

Made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television License Fee.

Sophie and Karl are persuaded to go on a blind date by mutual friends. What have they to lose? A compelling and intense audio drama about looking for love.

Content Warning: Sexually explicit material and references to sexual violence.

Sophie and Karl are persuaded to go on a blind date by mutual friends and long-term couple Helen and Dave. Sophie, a pretty, sexually confident thirty-year-old, is looking for something more permanent than her usual transient relationships. Karl, a good-looking thirtysomething, agrees because he thinks Helen secretly fancies him and this is her way of checking him out. The minute they clap eyes on each other they like what they see. The date goes really well with Sophie agreeing to go back to Karl’s for a coffee and chat. Each recount a radically different version of what happens next.

Written and Directed by Colette Cullen

Charlene Gleeson as Sophie

Made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television License Fee.

Jammie Dodgers by Ciara Gillan is a workplace comedy set in Berlin about a group of office temps from various countries (Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, the U.S.) who are determined to do as little work as possible, outsmart their manipulative boss, delay adult responsibility and not sleep with each other. They fail on all counts. Jammie Dodgers is a show that explores that time in your early twenties when, despite your best efforts, you start becoming an adult and making the choices that will determine your future.

Directed by Anna Nugent

Cast

Hannah O’Brien as Zoe

Made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television License Fee.

Breathing Space, a comedy drama about an accidental astronaut being ghosted by a space agency on her journey to Mars. Bridget Jones meets Gravity while Waiting For Godot.

It is the year 2032 and civilian guinea pig Ciara Fitzpatrick is aboard the first solo flight to Mars. When Mission Control fails to make contact and the daily audio diary entries she sends out are ignored, she quickly realises how far she is out of her depth.

As the days and weeks go by with no word back, the isolation and frustration close in and Ciara’s mood swings intensify. Careening between playful, paranoid and philosophical, she desperately attempts to stay optimistic and sane with no end in sight.

When she finally receives instructions from Mission Control and has the choice to either self-destruct or save herself, Ciara is confronted with an uncomfortable truth. Time is running out but the decision isn’t as clear-cut as one would expect.

Cast

Ciara Fitzpatrick – Eileen Walsh

Mission Control – John McGuire

Directed by Anna Nugent

Script by Dorothy Cotter

Made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television License Fee.

Rounding off our second series of new audio drama from women writers is 'Angry Bird' by Tamsin Larby.

Eileen Nolan is a 75-year old ‘force of nature’ who has had enough and because she has nothing to lose, that makes her ferocious!  She sees the populist Far Right as not only dangerous, but comes with discriminatory attitudes towards women, and being a survivor of domestic violence, she won’t tolerate this either.   She eggs the leader of the anti-immigrant “Irish Citizen’s Party” in a very public display to make her point, and starts to really enjoy her new rebellious ‘celebrity’ status.  However, her motives are more complicated than just politics. 

Her solicitor, Lisa Cleary, discovers Eileen has an estranged daughter, Chloe, who desperately wants to reconnect with Eileen as she escapes from her violent husband, but now can’t with all the publicity surrounding her mum.  In trying to bring Chloe back into her life, Eileen has pushed her even further away.  How will she resolve needing to make her political point and get to see her daughter again?

Cast:

Eileen - Mary McNamara

Radio presenter - Maura Walsh

Alex - Peter Prior

Usher - Declan Cahill

Niall McNally - Noel Kavanagh

Roisin Hayes - Rebecca Blomfield

Garda Larkin - Tommy Campbell

Lisa Cleary - Melissa Nolan

Chris - Ian Shipley

Geraldine - Cleary  Mary Neylon

Chloe Dillon - Frances Keogh

RTE presenter - Tommy Campbell

Judge Kennedy - Peter Prior

Prison guard - Carol Dempsey

Directed by

Declan Cahill

Music

Marty Gots A Plan by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4992-marty-gots-a-plan

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Alarm Bells is a radio play written and produced by the Green Ember Arts collective. It portrays the escalating housing crisis through an anthology of short scenes in which a small fraction of those most affected by homelessness are represented. Alarm Bells examines the reality of the housing crisis and the contrast of a dominant media narrative of economic recovery. Ireland now has over 100,000 people on public housing lists and over 10,000 homeless.

Cast

Writers

Crew

Made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, with the television licence fee.